the worst sidewalks

The worst sidewalks
are the ones covered with loose stones and sand and bits of rubble;
they run alongside the busiest roads
east-west arteries through town, always rumbling
all blacktop-patched potholes like bad teeth,
never clean or smooth
because the traffic hurtles onward without cease,
the heavy trucks rattling and booming like doom bearing down,
the glaring mindless drivers in salt-riddled cars
revving their impatience with the narrow lanes
gunning it like rapists, to make the light.

Along these roads are the most unfortunate
of pedestrians,
those with no choice.
no quiet tree-lined side streets, and no time
and the damned stones eat into your shoes
while you drag a hundred pounds of whatever you must carry
and cringe from the shrieking engines
with no green margin between you and the crumbling curbstone -
no good line of demarcation
separating your small life
from the merciless onward pounding
the roaring annihilation
and that sand and grit creeps through your skin
chews at your heel
becomes the taste of filth in your mouth.